I'm sorry, I should've been more complete.
Incorrect. You should've shut up.
[snip a lot of BS, most of it a thinly-disguised case of Owen stroking
his own ego]
Come to it, isn't your whole system of rules for social interaction an
implicit acknowledgement that you, like everyone else[-1], are
controlled in part by others?
All people are to some degree affected by what other people do. If
that weren't the case, I could just killfile assholes like you and not
worry about what effect you'd have on my life indirectly, through what
you said about me to others.
[snip a whole lot of BS, including amusing attempts by Owen to use
words too long and technical for people in his IQ bracket]
that out entirely. The *other* implicit assumption is that the best
you can possibly do from any given interaction where you've been
insulted is come out at zero total reputation change, which is a
rather pessimistic state of affairs since each "non-best" outcome
causes you some small loss that you can never recover. This being a
non-ideal universe, we can expect many, if not most, of the outcomes
not to be best.
This will happen to everyone, however, so the relative scores of two
different people can approximately hold steady. You and my other
attackers either dislike me, or seek to increase your relative scores
by decreasing the scores of others. No matter. I will continue to
oppose you so long as your actions are damaging to me and you show
signs of inimical hostility.
If I help someone, or post a piece of information that solves
someone's problem, the total change in my reputation can be similarly
quantified. We'll call that gain of face Y.
So you're suggesting I ignore insults and post helpful posts.
Unfortunately you're only thinking one move ahead, and you're also
assuming that "reputation" is strictly one-dimensional and that
everyone reads everything.
The first showstopper problem is that when I post helpful posts, I get
a half-dozen attack responses from you jerks explaining in a very
reasonable tone why I'm wrong. Of course, those half-dozen posts are
all lies, but the errors and fallacies in them are subtle, and the OP
and plenty of other people are liable to be fooled if they go
uncorrected. Y minus six times X, minus Y because people have been
convinced that my initial post was worthless, is something negative.
The second is that accusations get made against me that helpful posts
elsewhere, even if those were allowed to go unchallenged, would not
disprove. For example, an accusation that I'm stupid or incompetent
might be countered by a helpful post from me that shows both claims to
be false, but an accusation that I'm insane, or sexually interested in
Mike, or something else equally false but orthogonal in such a
fashion, would stand unchallenged and therefore be believed, or at
least "more believed than otherwise".
The third is that someone may read the post flaming me and not the
helpful post I make in an entirely separate thread. The one place I
can respond to undo some of the damage you do that maximizes the
impact is in a direct followup to your attack post, because whoever
reads the one is quite likely to read the other, more likely than to
read a more randomly selected post somewhere in cljp.
Of course, all of this becomes a non-issue if you'd only stop posting
attack posts! You gain nothing by doing so. You may as well give up,
right now.
I also assert that the effect of my positive actions (Ys) is much
larger on average than the effect of other peoples' negative actions
(Xs). Once again, this assertion is borne of my own observations.
Of course you know I can't trust anything you suggest, not when it's
clear from your other behavior that your intentions towards me are
hostile. There will be some way in which my following your advice, or
else doing the diametric opposite, instead of keeping my present
course, will harm me. Therefore I will continue on my present course.
That course is obviously causing you some discomfort, since you lot go
to a fair amount of effort to trick me into changing it. All the more
reason for me not to so much as twitch.
What I draw from these assumptions and assertions is that the effort
invested in countering each event where I lose face would be
disproportionate to the amount of face I gain by doing so, and my time
would be better spent being helpful and informative in other threads.
That might be true *if* you could do so unmolested. I certainly cannot
-- any helpful post I make is attacked and denigrated by one or more
of you, precisely in order to prevent it being an effective response
by me. Indeed, it would only widen the conflict to include additional
threads driven steadily OT by your accusations, my rebuttals, your
further accusations, etc., etc. This would do a disservice to
everybody. Until and unless I can trust that my posting a sincere
attempt at help somewhere in this ng won't just draw lightning down
onto that thread and ruin it for everybody via your hostile feelings
and callous disregard for the newsgroup charter, I cannot risk it for
all of the stated reasons. In short, I will participate minimally, to
defend myself only, until the storm has moved away from the area and
it seems safe to do so. And at that time, given the mistreatment I've
received each and every time I've resumed posting "normally" in the
past, the storm coming right back in short order, I will probably just
stop posting entirely instead. Sad, but unavoidable if I don't want
history to repeat itself. The problem being some people obviously
nurse grudges for a *very* long time. I kept a low profile here for
nearly a *year* once, then posted the odd Java-related post, and
before long was up to my eyeballs in gratuitous flamage and attacks
again!
Once again, the first person pronoun here is more for ease of writing
than to imply that these are my rules. However, I think these rules,
if I were to operate by rules at all, would lead to both an overall
improvement in my reputation and to a more enjoyable experience for
everyone.
Then by all means please do shut up with the OT posts *now* and post
only helpful, Java-related posts that make no mention, explicit or
implied, of me whatsoever.
Go on. I dare you.
Physics does not govern social interactions.
Physics governs everything.
It does not surprise me that you keep being drawn into arguments as a result.
I am "drawn into" an argument as soon as someone makes an egregious
claim about me in a public forum, whether I reply or not. If I don't
reply, I merely ensure that the argument has the form "White moves,
Black resigns" instead of Black refusing to go down without a fight.
And that the only words on the matter at all that get recorded for
posterity are the least favorable ones for my purposes. History is
written by the victors; one might argue that the victors are whoever
gets to write the history. If I write nothing, therefore, I lose. If
not, then I suppose both sides win, which really makes it a draw.
The nasty thing is that the best I can do is draw, as soon as someone
else attacks. That really shouldn't be the case; it should be that the
unprovoked attacker puts themselves in a position where they can draw
or lose but not win, because clearly they are the bad guy. But there's
nothing much I can do to change the way it works, is there?
Really, what would I *do* with your real name?
At minimum, tie the same nasty insults you keep making against me as
Twisted to that name in an attempt to destroy my future prospects in
life, socially and employment-wise. At worst, stalk and physically
attack me, vandalize my residence, or even go after my relatives and
my friends for all I know.
Nothing good, that much is certain, so I feel perfectly justified in
doing my darndest to deny you that information. No good can possibly
come of your obtaining it.
For that matter, I
believe I know it -- what do you think I *am* doing with it? I can
tell you, of course: I'm doing nothing at all. My knowing or not
knowing your name has no impact on you whatsoever.
Really? Why go to so much effort to obtain information you have no
intention of using? It makes no sense. I'm glad you're currently
fixated on a particular incorrect guess, but I have no real confidence
that that state of affairs will keep, and once you decide that it is
indeed a wrong guess you will be right back to making a concerted
effort to divine my real name again, and of course, there's always a
*slight* chance that you'll actually manage to succeed. And then I'm
in the soup. So I have to prevent this at all costs, and at the same
time try to get you to stop repeating the wrong guess either, since it
seems to be the name of a real person and that person is now
unknowingly at risk of having their reputation (as observed by anyone
doing a Google search as part of a background check, say) irreparably
harmed by your irresponsible and childish antics. I at least am here
to defend myself, and maybe, just maybe, I even did something to
provoke you. (Not something WRONG, mind you, of course not, but
something you took as a provocation due to your not being a reasonable
person.) He isn't here to defend himself and is even less culpable
than I am.
I'd fully intended to. Then I saw that you and Arnehole and several
other notorious assholes had posted to usenet again.
